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House GOP Leaders Plot Response on Ukraine

Cantor, committee chairs consider legislation to pressure Russia.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 08: House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) delivers remarks about his support of charter schools and tax-funded voucher programs that help pay for private and parochial schools at the Brookings Institution January 8, 2014 in Washington, DC. 'Right now, school choice is under attack,' Cantor said. He also said that the House Republicans will work to prevent anything that 'could devastate the growth of education opportunity,' including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's pledge to charge rent to the wealthiest charter schools.

National Journal

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Billy House

March 3, 2014, 2:13 p.m.

House Re­pub­lic­an com­mit­tee chair­men and oth­er lead­ers are de­vel­op­ing what Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Eric Can­tor on Monday said are “plans” to aid the Ukraine gov­ern­ment and take oth­er ac­tions to pres­sure Rus­sia to with­draw its mil­it­ary forces from that coun­try.

The ac­tions men­tioned do not in­clude dir­ect mil­it­ary in­ter­ven­tion.

Can­tor said he be­lieves there is bi­par­tis­an sup­port for “as­sist­ance,” but that “we must make sure it is done re­spons­ibly and any le­gis­la­tion is not delayed by adding di­vis­ive pro­vi­sions.”

“We should be fo­cused on mov­ing such a pack­age as quickly as pos­sible,” said the House’s No. 2 Re­pub­lic­an.

Spe­cific­ally, Can­tor said the House “will re­view how we can ex­ped­i­tiously con­sider as­sist­ance to Ukraine in the form of loan guar­an­tees.”

As for Rus­sia, Can­tor said, “We will also be­gin re­view­ing what au­thor­it­ies, sim­il­ar to the Mag­nit­sky Act, we may provide the ad­min­is­tra­tion so that the pres­id­ent can take ac­tions to im­pose sanc­tions on Rus­si­an of­fi­cials, ol­ig­archs, and oth­er in­di­vidu­als com­pli­cit in Rus­sia’s ef­forts to in­vade and in­ter­fere with Ukraine’s sov­er­eign af­fairs.”

The ma­jor­ity lead­er ad­ded: “I have spoken to ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials to ex­press our in­terest in work­ing to­geth­er to en­sure that Pres­id­ent Obama has the ap­pro­pri­ate tools to im­pose real con­sequences on Rus­sia for this ag­gres­sion.”